Casually Professional
by spencergaystings
Summary: The fine lines between the superhero and the sideckick, the damsel and the good guy, the boss and the employeee are very blurry for Toby and Spencer. / Comedy/Romance/AU. Plot twist: Spoby goes Iron Man. ONE-SHOT.


Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeello there. Here I am with a new one-shot! Hope this one is at least acceptable... I've been gone for too long.

This one is a plot twist of... wait for it... Spoby goes Iron Man! (And another plotline I've been asked by myself and some people that I really love and adore aka best friends... You'll see it when you see it.)

Yays for Pepperony

Hope you like it! This one I tried with a new pov... It's in Spencer's point of view and I don't know if I liked it tbh, I like writing stuff in third person. But if you liked it and you think I got it right, message me? Thank you! xx

* * *

My time working for Toby Cavanaugh was strangely akin to a comic book. If he was the superhero, I was the sidekick.

I'd always thought this was just my silly way of looking at things, but the day after Toby and I saw the new "Iron Man" movie - actually, we rented a movie theater just for the two of us when the movie came out because he wanted to be aware of the storylines before the second "the Avengers" and tended not to go out in public too often - I realized I wasn't alone in this way of thinking.

As soon as the end credits started rolling, Toby turned to me and said, "I'm furious."

"Why?" I asked.

I shouldn't have asked.

"Because they totally stole my thing. I'm the rascal billionaire crime fighter the world can't seem to get enough of," he said, finishing with a roguish smile, as if to accent his attributes.

"No one knows you're a billionaire crime fighter," I pointed out.

"_Rascal _billionaire crime fighter," he corrected.

I shook my head. "Anyone who knows you - which, granted, is a precious few - knows you're a rascal. Besides, Iron Man wasn't a vampire. _You _are."

He huffed, "Semantics. Just like me, he was charming, rich, handsome, funny, irresistible -"

"Oh, but he lacked the modesty you have in spades."

Toby smiled. "Good point. I knew I kept you around for a reason."

I rolled my eyes as I double checked my phone for the address of our next appointment. There was a chance Toby's tomfoolery wouldn't deter us from being ahead of schedule for once. "You keep me around because despite vampiric super abilities, so much money you could spend eternity counting it, and a brain that occasionally demonstrates capability when not too busy being cute and coming up with juvenile quips, you wouldn't function without me."

"So you think I'm cute?"

I looked up from my phone, "Huh?"

"You said I was cute." He smiled proudly.

"No, I didn't."

"Who has the infallible memory between the two of us?"

I hated this argument so I didn't answer. His smile was about ten degrees beyond smug. "I thought so."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Even if I did, your interpretation is flawed. I didn't mean -"

"You said I was 'too busy being cute and coming up with juvenile quips."

"Yes, that _is _what I said, but -"

"So there it is. I was being cute."

"I didn't-" I huffed at the sly smile spreading across his face. The last time I had slipped up - I'd made the mistake of telling him he looked handsome in his suit - it'd taken us nearly an hour to get back on track. Toby may have had eternity to dawdle, but I wasn't about to let him.

"Moving on-"

"Why aren't you more angry?" He asked.

I put my hands on my hips and fixed my steeliest gaze on him. "You know, I've asked myself that question every single day I've worked for you, Toby."

"I mean -" he said, huffing and drawing out the word 'mean' into three syllables like a child, instead of the centenarian he actually was. "Gwyneth Paltrow? You're much hotter than she is. I mean, she's like a stick insect compared to you and you have these lovely -"

"Toby..." I warned.

He had sense to look slightly ashamed. "You're not going to make me sit through another sexual harassment seminar, are you?"

"I don't know. We might have met our quota on these for the year. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard -" seeing the way his eyes lit up devilishly, I corrected myself quickly, "You would think it wouldn't be that _difficult _to control yourself, considering I'm the only employee you see on a daily basis."

"Control? Around you? Spencer, my dear, you eradicate what laughably little self-control I might have ever had." He leered at me harmlessly, a look that I had gotten so used to in the years we had worked together that it barely ever fazed me. "Still, Gwyneth Paltrow? She could goop herself to death and not be half the woman you are. Though, I mean, quite literally in size, she might actually _be _half the woman you are, which is a little disturbing, since your figure is rather slim as it is -"

"How in the world do you know what GOOP is?"

He shrugged, "You can google it. Anyway, as I was saying. Not nearly as pretty as you. Pepper Potts can't hold a candle to Spencer Hastings."

"Well, thank you. Can we leave now? You're going out patrolling in an hour and we're supposed to have that conference call with Marin & Rivers about the design of the training um... bunker, for lack of a better term."

"Let's give it a better term."

"Like what?"

He drummed his fingers along his jaw with one hand as he scrolled through something on his phone with the other. "I don't know. The Tobscave sounds stupid. Fortress of Solitude sounds whiny. What's Spiderman's hang out called?"

"Manhattan."

"Oh."

"Tony Stark doesn't have a name for this place," I said. Sometimes, I liked to annoy him. Just sometimes.

"Don't say that name in front of me," he hissed. "I'm still furious about them blatantly ripping off my life and fictionalizing it. Come to think of it, arrange a meeting with the director. And Robert Downey Jr." He said this as if he met with people every day, completely ignoring the fact that he was a reclusive vampire.

"Yes, Mr. Cavanaugh." I said, with all the sincerity I could feign.

Apparently, acting wasn't my forte. "You only call me that when you're placating me," he said, narrowing his eyes at me.

"Yes, Mr. Cavanaugh."

"And..." he stopped mid-sentence as something he was reading caught his eyes. "Oh! The bat's out of the hat, which I never really understood as a phrase, to be honest -"

"The phrase is actually 'the cat's out of the hat', not bat." I corrected.

"Oh. That makes more sense, I think. I always thought I missed out because I don't hang out with bats."

"I've only seen bunnies out of hats in those magician shows, I've never actually seen a cat leaving one."

"Good to know. Anyway, cat, bat, hat, whatever, it's here. Tony Stark's full name? _Anthony_ Edward Stark."

"I don't see the link." I deadpanned.

Toby gave me a withering look. "_My _name is Tobias _Allen_ Cavanaugh. One would think you would know that, Spencer."

I matched his expression. "I know that you hate drinking goat's blood and only drink from the wildest animals if you have to and that once you ate a little girl's bunny that was lost in the woods near your house and felt so guilty about it after you heard it was someone's little pet, that in the next morning you went to a pet shop on your own and bought three little bunnies and left it on the girl's bed and waited for her to wake up and see the animals to finally go back to your house and could finally feel good about yourself again, I know you hate the color green and the food you want most in the world is pizza, but you're too scared to actually eat it. You hate 'Two and a Half-man' but love 'The Big Bang Theory', you read Harry Potter when you're upset, you sing Adele and sometimes Bridgit Mendler in the shower, loudly. Too loudly, since I can hear it from three rooms away. If you had a social security number, blood type or allergies, I would know these too."

He regarded me for a minute before declaring, "Impressive." But just as quickly, he was back on his own madness, no method needed. "Anyway, this name thing seals it. Sue the director and writers for... defamation."

"Stan Lee is actually the creator of the Tony Stark character - it started as a comic."

"Sue him, too."

I resisted rolling my eyes, "While we're at it, there is an actor, most noted for his role on the teen drama Pretty Little Liars, named Keegan Allen. Would you like to sue him as well?"

"Yes." He paused for a beat, "No, sue his parents. They were the ones who named him." Another beat. "You know what, just sue all of them. A reverse class-action suit."

"I'll get right on that, Mr. Cavanaugh. In the meanwhile, can we head out? If we can finish that Marin & Rivers meeting today, it'll free up some of your time for tomorrow."

"Do I need free time tomorrow?"

"Well, in the morning, we have the meeting with Mrs. Fields."

"Why are you calling her that? It's Emily. And why do I need to meet with her? I thought I made her CFO and CEO and COO and CD-Room and CNN and eighty other acronyms so I wouldn't have to meet with her."

"Well, it's still your company," I pointed out, "So yes, you do have to meet with her. But you haven't run any hunting drills in a while. I thought we'd put you through the old course. Wouldn't want you going soft on us, now would we?"

"Oh, Spencer, I would never. I'm always har-"

"Finish that sentence and I _will_ make Aria give you another sexual harassment workshop."

"I was going to say, I would never go all soft on you. Just because I get delivered shipments of animal and human blood like a spoiled house cat doesn't mean I'm getting domesticated."

"If I could domesticate you, the first thing I'd do is have you neutered," I muttered under my breath. But of course, heightened senses and all, Toby heard it.

"Ouch, Spence. I may be a vampire, but I'm still a man." Immortal though he might have been, I think he could sense from the look I shot him that he was quite possibly in serious harm. He cleared his throat. "Anyways, yes, Marin & Rivers today. Emily and some fake hunting tomorrow. All in a days for... Fangman?" He looked at me for my opinion.

I shook my head, "Stop trying to be a super-hero."

"You're just lucky I'm on the good side. What if I wasn't the hero? What if I was the villain?"

"Then I wouldn't work for you." I shrugged, "I don't work for evil."

"Well, that done is incentive to keep me on the straight and righteous."

"Get up, Toby, let's go." I stood up and moved from the aisle.

"I'd prefer some T&A," he muttered from behind me. *****_(__**Note: T&A = Tits & Ass**__)__*****_

"Never mind about those hunting drills," I called behind me breezily. "Your free time has been filled up."

"With what?" He asked.

"I'm scheduling that call with Aria. For someone with an infallible memory, you seem to forget the rules of conduct with an employee quite often."

I heard him snort from behind me. "It's been years you've been my employee, Spencer."

We both knew there was far too much truth in that statement. Still, I pushed away that feeling of free fall his words incited in me and casually turned my head, asking over my shoulder, "If I'm not your employee, Toby, what am I?"

He caught my arm and turned me to face him. His eyes, far too blue and compelling, were soft, and gone were all the traces of childish humor he'd just been displaying.

"You are my life now, Spencer." He said, seemingly sincere.

I raised an eyebrow.

"Too cheesy?" He asked.

I raised it a little higher.

"Too cheesy." He agreed. He took an unnecessary breath and let it out. I let out a breath, feeling relief that the serious moment passed. This push-and-pull, his jokes and my exasperation at them, the easy rhythm of our conversations were the way we had been for years now. The idea of changing it, of losing this familiarity, this comfort filled me with a type of fear I couldn't quite describe. But it didn't explain the tiny stab of disappointment I felt. Toby, purposely playing oblivious, shrugged and grinned brightly. "Alright. I'll try to woo you again later."

As I turned away towards the exit, I allowed myself a little laugh. I knew that he could hear it, though he didn't react.

I had no doubt he'd try again. And again and again and again.

That was just how we did things around here.

* * *

Well, I hope you liked it! I certainly had a lot of fun doing this. As you may have noticed, I put two plot twists of two of my other favorite couples ever and I don't know, I hoped it worked! Surely it's very different from anything else you've ever seen here hahahahaha.

You know, one would thing reviews make authors very happy... What do you think?


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